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The quiet that had filled Ortegas life after the last case with Kovacs was doing nothing but make her antsy. Now that Rykers sleeve mortgage was paid off and they'd moved to a new flat all that was left was boxes to unpack and just like before she didn't dare open them. There was a sort of comfort in the way she could just find a few items she needed from each neatly labeled package and leave everything else untouched. Photo frames, fake pot plants, and every other reminder that she was a person outside of her job: could stay packed away until she felt safe again. Safe as she'd felt before all of this.
She paced back and forth in her kitchen, coffee cup in hand. Usually this would mean she was midway through a perticularly annoying case but not today. Today she was thinking about him again. Why she'd slept with him, why they had clung to each other through all of this and what it had all meant in the end. Rationally she could write it off as a one night fling with the sleeve of her actual partner. Something nice and simple. But deep down it had felt like much more, like Kovacs and her were bound to have found each other even if she hadn't searched up his records and taken him from the resleeving facility.
It had been weird being back on the force with Ryker. More than weird. Unsettling. The moment he'd been brought back she'd sat with him and helped him through the sleeve sickness and gotten him caught up on the whole situation. He'd obviously not been happy that someone else had been galavanting around in his skin (especially with the amount of new scars he'd discovered) but theres nothing he could've done about it. He was happy to be home and it showed. Now that he wasn't trapped in the biggest Meth conspiracy of their generation he'd calmed down a lot. She should have been happy too. But Ortega couldn't return to their normal routine. She'd started to notice.
Little differences had been throwing her off. She knew they were two different people but both of them having used the same sleeve it was hard to seperate them internally. The subtle changes were the worst. Their mannerisms different enough to almost push into the uncanny valley of someone else wearing his skin... Even though it WAS his skin. She could list them off in her head: Kovacs would stand noticably still, taking it all in, eyes flicking around to mentally note the exits of each new room. Ryker shifts and moves, full of nervous energy. Kovacs would move through crowds like a fish through water, nimbly gliding past people as if he was barely there. Ryker barges through, knocking shoulders with anyone unaware of his straight line path to his destination. Kovacs would stand in silence, hand warm and comforting on her shoulder. Now Ryker stands, back turned to her across the kitchen, unaware.
"What are you thinking about" Ryker asks, snapping her out of her trance. She'd barely even registered him entering the room.
"Oh, nothing really. Just a lots happened since you were gone."
"Right. Yeah..." The silence hung in the air for a few seconds longer than it should've.
Ryker leant back against the counter and whipped a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it in a practiced motion that (just for a second) made her feel like Kovacs was back in the room. "Malditos fantasmas..." she muttered to herself. Rykers head tilted up, eyes moving from the cigarette to her.
"Are you sure you're alright Kristin." It was weird hearing her first name come out of his mouth "You keep looking at me like I'm a stranger"
It hit her like a punch to the gut. Ryker, her partner, the man she had fought for, was a stranger to her. She'd held on so tight to the pieces of him she loved and yet in barely a fortnight Kovacs had gotten so much closer to her than Ryker ever had. They were overlapped, two people who'd shared the same body now overlayed in her mind. She'd known that Kovacs was just using her as a placeholder for Quell and that she might've been using him just the same but now it was like they'd been glued to each other. Bonded by the horrors they'd faced together and the fear of losing the closest thing to a soulmate they'd ever had. The way they'd peered into each others eyes and seen a better future instead of hunting the ghosts of partners long gone. Perhaps if things had been slightly different they would have been soul mates after all. It was all too much, living with Ryker so soon after Kovacs had moved on. She wondered if he was thinking the same, somewhere out there with Quell. The silence between her and Ryker had gone on too long.
"I just got used to you being someone else" She crossed the space between them quickly and ducked her head under his arms, pressing her face into his chest. "sorry."
Saying it out loud hurt but she felt a weight lift from her chest. Ryker took a deep pull of his cigarette, put his arms around her shoulders, careful to keep the lit end away from her hair.
"Look, this Kovacs guy. It seems he meant a lot to you." Ortega nodded, tears forming in her eyes against her will. "How about you tell me about him then" He was warm and gentle and not Kovacs. But he was here and he cared.
And finally the silence between them started to lift.